Victorian Jewelry

Victorian Jewelry spanned the years 1837 to 1901, commencing with an awakening interest in naturalism and terminating with the Aesthetic period during the Late Victorian Era where c onspicuous consumption became less socially acceptable and 'society' became more aware of the hideous labor conditions and poverty that existed in England . Early Victorian Jewelry depicted Queen Victoria's passion for Medieval Romanticism and Scottish jewelry popularized coral, ivory, seed-pearls, tortoise shell, bog oak, horn, hair, ammonite fossils, petrified wood, granite, opercula, marble and Blue John in particular. The death of Prince Albert in 1861 began a 25 year period of mourning and the commencement of the Suffragette movement, jewelry and clothing steadily turned black both at court and in the country.